Nothing is harder in life than retaining one’s faith when God appears to have deserted you. There is a darkness that some people experience where everything in life suddenly changes into one where God seems to have left us alone. No matter how bad things become, how sad they are and how close together it all happens, we can feel deserted, alone, bereft. Sometimes this lasts only briefly, for others now and then, for others again it can be for a lifetime.
No matter how much we pray, seek for comfort or try to feel everything we always felt or knew was there for us, there are times we feel none of it is there any more. Our prayers seem to go unheard and our faith becomes something very fragile that we desperately try to hold onto. It is at such times we need to focus hard, meditate, pray even harder and have even stronger faith.
Cast your minds back to Jesus suffering and dying on the cross. Remember His words, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He knew God hadn’t left Him alone at all, but he was in a sea of darkness where He had to suffer without comfort in order to fulfill what had to be achieved.
This is what happens to those of us who suddenly find ourselves feeling we are left to cope alone in that same sea of darkness Jesus was feeling. It is then our blind faith comes into its own – or deserts us totally.
How hard it is to keep believing when more and more and more is thrown at you each day with no let up; no one seeming to be there to bring that much needed comfort. We know God could ease our suffering, could answer our prayers, but when badness, sadness, struggles and strife are all we know every day for many years and no prayers are answered as we hope, where is God? Where is heaven, where is our comfort and reward for keeping faith?
Blind faith is believing in God and His existence without having seen Him, without being able to feel Him. Believing due to what we have been taught and heard about rather from seeing it ourselves with our own eyes. Believing due to something deep inside us that hasn’t been taught to us, but seems to be inbuilt, a gift given us from God. Believing our prayers have been heard and answered, just not always in the way we wanted them to be.
Many people talk of the Dark Night of the Soul without knowing what it actually means. They talk of it far too frivolously because they think it’s this brief darkness where they feel lost. Where they say they cannot feel God because He doesn’t answer all their prayers every time, but that isn’t The Dark Night of the Soul. The Dark Night is something far deeper, far darker than anything no one but a handful will ever come to know or understand fully.
The darkness we talk of here is something very different and is something everyone will experience at some time in their lives. It is at such times our faith really is tested. Do we still believe, will we hold firm and know God is still with us even if we can’t feel Him or will we walk away from God, give up and start to believe others who say He isn’t real, doesn’t exist?
It is at times like these we have to work harder to recognise God has heard our prayers and has most likely answered them. Maybe He answered them in the way He knew was best for us in the greater scheme of things rather than the here and now we wanted as a quick fix.
When we pray, we want instant results. We want our prayers to be answered with an outcome we want rather than in ways of what is best or what we need. We might think what we want would be the best outcome, but God looks at the greater picture when answering prayers. He knows what lies ahead that we don’t. It is based on that knowledge He answers prayer for what is needed, what is best in the long term and not for the instant and that moment.
No matter how hard these times are, this is when we should be most grateful, for it’s this darkness, the feeling of helplessness that’s our greatest lesson in life and is what strengthens our faith in God. Faith is, after all, not about trusting in something you can see and feel but trusting in something you can’t. If we could see and feel everything, then why would we need faith? We wouldn’t.
The dark, hard and sad times in life are tough, very tough to go through, but they are the times that do most for us in the long term. How we accept them, handle them and behave during them will decide how much we grow or not, how much we will nourish our souls or not.
It is very important to thank God more for these lessons of life, for these hardships, than it is for the good things we enjoy because they are the ones that will ultimately help decide what becomes us on leaving this world. It will decide what lessons we do or don’t need to learn on leaving here after our death.
The darkness is a sad and very lonely place to be, but we can come through it if we place all our trust in God. It doesn’t matter how long it lasts be it short or long, how many days, weeks, years or even decades we have to suffer, the important thing is to know God is doing it for a reason, allowing it for a reason.
He knows all things and never makes mistakes. This is why we need to wholly place our trust in Him totally now and forever. We have to know and believe without a doubt that all of it is for a good reason and that we too will one day be allowed to know the reason for it all and understand. Until then, no matter how dark life becomes, the important things is that we all remain in faith to love and serve the Lord.
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